


Changed

by Jaxon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Violence, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 16:38:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17984768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaxon/pseuds/Jaxon
Summary: Severus has changed.  His parents have noticed.





	Changed

He watches him, Tobias.  He doesn’t turn the pages of his newspaper, but clocks the boy’s height, the boy’s shoulders, the boy’s strength.  He’s taller now, since going to that school.  They feed them differently there, or so she says.  

It’s not just that - he’s  _changed_.  Something’s happened - a girl, Tobias would wager.  Lad his age, it’s always a girl.  The boy is quiet, almost mute, but his fist is permanently clenched around that stick, dark eyes following Tobias’ every action, a disgusted sneer etched on his face.  

She wasn’t a martyr.  Could never claim to be a martyr.  She didn’t deflect his attention from her son, not as she should’ve - but she knew how to read her husband in a way that Severus couldn’t.  She knew when to usher her son into another room, when to send him to bed, when to silence him with a quelling look across the table.

It was always quick.  She’d hide her son, and Tobias would hit her.  The boy would interfere, and he’d hit him instead.  She’d cover for him, and they’d both catch it in equal measure.  But that’s all it was - punishment administered, then he’d sit down for his tea.  No sulking.  No moping.  Not from any of them.

This had been brewing for a while, like a potion ready to bubble over the edge of the cauldron.   _Don’t_ , she’d warned - but Severus couldn’t help himself, teasing and provoking, testing the water.  She couldn’t bear to watch.   _It’s like poking a Hippogriff_.  

_Why did you even marry him, Mam?_

She doesn’t have an answer.  Not one fit for the ears of her son.

He was secretive.  Quiet.  It made it all the more jarring when he stopped mentioning that girl.  Now there was nothing but silence.  He was suddenly darker, angrier.  She saw the books he was hiding under his bed, and she saw the sketches in the back of his diary.  She hadn’t meant to read it.  She only wanted to know what had happened between them, that girl and her boy.  Only he wasn’t her boy any more.  He wasn’t the scared child who peered around the kitchen door, horror etched on his face, unable to prevent his father’s tirade.   

It was no longer quick.  She wonders if this was what it was like to witness the fall of an empire - the last flush of fury and possession, of desperate clinging to power.  He was older, Tobias, his movements slow but his strength steady.  The challenger was weaker, the pretender to the throne - not as loud, but waspish, spiteful, bitter.  His commentary was poison, deadly accurate, and although his hands were weaker, his punches like water, that stick protruded from his pocket, ever-threatening.

There always used to be an end.  A line drawn.  An apology - always hers, sometimes tears - hers also.  He’d hold her in the dark, his rapid movements his penance.  She realised too late that her boy never understood that, the secret language of adults.  He saw the fight, but never the resolution.  Neither man knew how to retreat, face saved - not from each other.  The anger lingered, a cloud of oppressive gas preventing them from breathing, ready to ignite at the slightest spark.

It was quick, in the end.  She knew it would be.  A shout and a punch and a flash and a scream.  Two lives extinguished, husband and son - one soul departed, another shredded beyond repair.  


End file.
